Hey what’s up Thinkers! Kathy Gibbens here…
Let’s start off today with a quick review of a fallacy we covered earlier this season, the Fallacy of Misleading Vividness. Hit pause real quick and test yourself to see if you can remember what this fallacy is! The Fallacy of Misleading Vividness occurs when someone shares a small number of really dramatic events and those events are made to seem like they’re way more common, more likely or more important than they really are.
Question to ask yourself if you think you’re facing a Fallacy of Misleading Vividness is really simple: “Is it really true that this event is much more likely to happen again?”
If you want to review or learn about the Fallacy of Misleading Vividness, check out Episode 81.
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In the last episode, I told you about the Circumstantial Ad Hominem so I thought I’ll give you another Ad Hominem fallacy today, the Inconsistency Ad Hominem. The Inconsistency Ad Hominem Fallacy happens when someone’s claim is attacked because the person making the claim is inconsistent. Now, if it were me naming this fallacy, I would call it an Appeal to Inconsistency, but it’s not up to me, so we’re going with the common name of the Inconsistency Ad Hominem, because what this fallacy is doing is attacking the person rather than the argument.
Here’s a simple example. Let’s say Aubrey is trying to teach her younger brother, Asher, how to clean the kitchen. He says, “How can you teach me how to clean when your room is a mess?” Ok, maybe Aubrey’s room is a mess, but does that mean she can’t teach him how to clean the kitchen? No, it doesn’t. It shows she has an inconsistency, but it doesn’t mean he can’t learn how to clean the kitchen from her.
Here’s another example: “Don’t listen to Governor Knapp when she tries to defend the 2nd Amendment, she used to be a notorious gun hater.” Ok, do you see the fallacy there? Rather than addressing the Governor’s 2nd Amendment arguments, they’re dismissing her because she used to hate guns. And maybe that’s true! But that doesn’t mean her argument is bad, you have to judge the argument for itself. Besides, she could have changed her mind, right?
Notice that the inconsistency can be between what the person is saying and doing, or the inconsistency could be between what the person is saying or doing now, and what the person was saying or doing before. The reason this fallacy works so well is that in most circumstances, inconsistency is seen as being a bad thing, a negative trait. People who try to discredit someone because of a real or perceived inconsistency are trying to make them seem untrustworthy and not credible. And maybe that’s true…but just because someone may be lacking credibility in an area doesn’t mean their argument is bad! The problem with the thinking in this fallacy is pretty straightforward: as with all Ad Hominem attacks, they’re attacking the person rather than the argument itself. In this case, they’re pointing out a real or perceived inconsistency and saying that because they have an inconsistency in their life, they’re untrustworthy and therefore their argument is invalid. But is that really true? You have to look at the argument for what it is and judge it for its own merits, separate from the inconsistency of the person making the argument. Honestly, it’s not always easy to do, which is why this fallacy is an easy one to commit.
Another example of this fallacy happens when people say that the Bible can’t be true or God can’t be real because Christians mess up all the time. Or they’ll say Christianity is invalid because I know Christians who are total hypocrites. The problem here is you can’t judge the claims of Christianity based on the actions or inconsistency of some of the followers. You have to look at the actual claims of Christianity and judge them for themselves. I’ve heard this analogy: Let’s say you have a favorite band, I don’t know, let’s say it’s the Beatles. And you go to a concert where there’s a cover band playing Beatles songs and they’re terrible. They play the songs really badly. Who do you blame? The Beatles or the terrible cover band? Of course you’re going to blame the cover band for playing the songs badly…the originals were great! That kind of sums up the Inconsistency Ad Hominem.
So, the question to ask yourself when you’re facing an Inconsistency Ad Hominem is this: “Does that inconsistency mean their argument isn’t valid?” *repeat*
Remember: When you learn HOW to think, you will no longer fall prey to those who are trying to tell you what THEY want you to think and it all starts with asking one simple question: “Is that really true?”
